Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Kevin Slowey & the Target Field Experience

So my brother got married on Saturday (8/14) and a good time was had by all, but the fun didn't stop there. Back in May when preparing for this trip to Minnesota, I had checked to see if the Twins were in town and purchased tickets for Sunday's game ($30 a piece for 1st level left field seats, 3 rows from the fence). Needless to say, I had been looking forward to this game for a LONG TIME and the success the Twins have been having recently only served to heighten the excitement.

From the moment you walk out of the skyway and on to Kirby Puckett plaza, the stadium does not disappoint. If you're facing the stadium and standing on the plaza, there is a large piece of "stadium art" to your left, which when it's windy is very beautiful. It's nothing more than a large sheet of metal tiles, but as the wind passes through it, it's almost as if you can see the wind....anyway, I digress.

We arrived at the stadium about an hour before game time and took our time getting to our seats. Walking through the 1st level concourse I was struck by just how many food options there were. There is your normal ballpark fare, hotdogs, nachos, etc. but then you see a Wok station, gourmet sausage (Kramarczuk), a restaurant called "The Carvery", and a stand selling wild-rice soup. Due to budget concerns my wife and I stuck to the normal ballpark food, but I definitely hope to be able to branch out a little bit on my next visit.

In walking around the 1st level concourse, it struck me how ALL THE SEATS POINT TOWARD THE INFIELD!! This is how it's supposed to be obviously, but not how it has been for the past 28 years at the Dome. Our seats were in left field, about 3 rows from the fence and I was surprised how close I felt to the infield. Here's a pic from my seat:

At this point, I'm obligated to talk about the game because it was the "Slowey Game." First of all, being there, it didn't feel like a no-hitter, there were 3 walks and a hit batter, enough base-runners where you had to keep checking to make sure there were still no hits. When Gardy took Slowey out to start the 8th, the boos were LOUD and understandable. I was not booing, mainly because I knew exactly why they were taking Slowey out and thought it to be a smart move. Rauch really got it when he gave up the 1st hits and runs of the game, but the Twins won and that's all that matters.

As far as our view of the game went, I loved our seats, but would have loved to be able to see the massive scoreboard. We were directly underneath the scoreboard with a deck above us so our view of it was completely blocked. The still show a few highlight on the very detailed out-of-town scoreboard, but you miss all of the between inning stuff. Here's a picture of the scoreboard:

One other random thought here before I wrap it up; I loved being at a Twins game with 40,000 other people. The day was perfect weather-wise and after having been to so many games over the past 10 years where there was only 15,000-25,000 people there, this was really nice. The crowd was loud during run-scoring plays and loud at the end. Saw a couple of great catches (Kubes and Repko) and saw Thome hit his 580th homerun, all in a day's work. Overall, I really had a great time at the game and I was very impressed with the new ballpark, I can't wait to go back. Here's some randoms: